


The Burden

by EldritchSandwich



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluffy Sandwich, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season 2 Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchSandwich/pseuds/EldritchSandwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even if she's no longer the leader of the Sky People, Clarke Griffin still has one last order of business to take care of. Of course, that business just so happens to bring her to the doorstep of the only person who could possibly understand what she's been through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Burden

They're heading back to Polis.

They're not moving as fast as she'd like; the people who were held captive inside the Mountain are still too weak, and she doesn't want to push them. Not right now. It burns her, because she wants to be rid of this place. Tondc's gone, the Mountain Men will never fall now, and the Sky People...

There's nothing left for them here.

They're setting up camp for the night. She needs to make sure the survivors from the Mountain get enough water; most of them are being stubborn, refusing to take more than their share. They've been out of their cages for less than three days, and half of them want to pick up swords. Not that she can blame them. After what the Mountain Men did, she wants revenge too. But surviving's more important than that.

Surviving's more important than anything.

She looks down at her map, going over their route again in her mind, and just as she does everything explodes. The guards on the south side of the camp start shouting, people start running, and she can hear weapons being drawn and branches breaking underfoot even as the words make their way to her ears.

"Skaikru! Skaikru ste jomp oso op!"

That sends a bolt of shock down her spine. The Sky People attacking? How is that possible? Had she miscalculated that badly? She shoves her way out of the tent and through the crowd, past Indra's aggravating attempts to shield her, expecting to hear the sounds of battle, gunfire and death and confirmation that she made the worse mistake she could have.

But then she gets through the crowd, and she stops. There are no Sky People. Well, there's one Sky Person.

One Skygirl.

Before she can stop herself, her hand slices through the air. "Yo hod op!" The warriors hemming her in stop, and Lexa steps forward into the circle.

Clarke's eyes flick up into hers.

She looks like hell. Not just the cuts and bruises and the bags under her eyes, because Lexa's so used to those she just considers them part of the girl's face. No, this look is in the eyes above the bags, the taut line of her mouth, like she's trying to keep it from curling into a snarl of...what? Rage? Disgust? Pain?

No one else speaks until Clarke does.

"The Mountain Men are dead." Lexa's eyes widen just a little. "I killed them. Every single one." She doesn't know what to say to that. Clarke shrugs. "I though you might want to know."

No one says anything still. After a few moments where their eyes don't leave each other's, Clarke shakes her head and turns around, and the warriors part for her without having to be told. Lexa's hand clenches at her side, and when the blonde's foot crunches against the undergrowth, she lets out her breath.

"Wait." Clarke does. She turns her head a little. Not enough. Lexa turns too, to raise an arm toward her tent. "Come inside."

Clarke's shoulders collapse. Like she was hoping Lexa would say it, like she's been waiting for someone to tell her what to do, or even just like she's too tired to resist. She turns and stumbles through the crowd of warriors, slowly, not looking at any of them. Some of the ones who were in the Mountain are looking at her, though, with looks somewhere between fear and awe. They know. They know what was supposed to happen, and they know that it didn't. But they don't know what happens now, and neither does Lexa.

And neither does Clarke.

When Lexa drops the tent flap behind them, Clarke just stands there. She doesn't sit, she doesn't say anything. She just stands there and stares at nothing, eyes not even moving as Lexa passes in front of her. Lexa doesn't push her, just turns her back as she pours water into the basin by the bedroll. As she finishes, she hears Clarke shift.

"Have you ever killed children?"

Lexa straightens, stands, turns. Finds Clarke looking at her, and looks her dead in the eye in return.

"Yes."

Clarke shakes her head, just a little, rolls her eyes too in what might be disgust and what might just be frustration. "I don't mean ordered it. Have you done it? Yourself?"

Lexa's lips purse. She lets out a breath. "No."

Clarke snorts bitterly. "Does that make me a better leader than you?"

Lexa doesn't say anything. Instead, she closes the distance between them, and Clarke flinches into a fighting stance when Lexa reaches for the collar of her jacket.

"What are you doing?"

Lexa still says nothing, and Clarke doesn't fight any more as she peels the garment off. She takes the blonde gently by the wrist and leads her to the basin, hands down. Clarke's knuckles are still broken and bloody, her nails the same, the backs of her hands covered in scratches and dirt and blood that probably isn't hers. Lexa lowers them to the water and raises the cloth, running it gently around the slender curvatures of Clarke's fingers, firm but gentle pressure gliding slowly up the back of her hand, around her wrist, down her palm, eyes fixed on her work but every other sense so, so aware of the blonde's presence so close to her.

As she finishes cleaning the left hand and moves to the right, Clarke bursts into tears.

She keeps washing, keeps her eyes on the girl's hands, and when she's done Clarke's still crying. So her hands pat Clarke's dry, then slide up her arms to tug the blonde gently against her chest. She can feel Clarke gasping and shaking, and she wants so badly to tell her that she understands and that everything will be all right. But she can't, because she knows that she doesn't, and that it never will.

Eventually, Clarke's tears ebb. Lexa doesn't speak until Clarke does.

"I hate you," Clarke mutters into her chest, and Lexa doesn't want to flinch, but she does. "So much. I gave you everything, sacrificed everything I loved, everything I was, to make peace, and you threw it all away. And do you know what the worst part is?"

She pulls back far enough to look up, those cold blue eyes boring into hers as her slender mouth distends into a bitter smile. "It's that I understand. It's that I would have done exactly the same thing. You tell me, Commander, what the hell does that make me?"

Clarke doesn't resist when Lexa's hand rises to her forehead, just lets her eyes slip shut as it brushes her hair back along the curve of her beautiful, agonized face. "Tired," Lexa murmurs. "It makes you tired."

Clarke lets out a long, shuddering breath. Her eyes don't reopen.

"Sleep," Lexa commands, and Clarke obeys.

* * *

Clarke wakes up a little before dawn. Her sleep was troubled, tossing and turning and muttering to herself all night, but she never awakened. Lexa knows that because she didn't sleep herself. She spent the night sitting on the edge of the map table, watching. It would have been ridiculous to say that she was standing guard over Clarke's dreams, or that she wouldn't have been able to sleep if she wanted to. She simply...didn't feel like sleeping.

When Clarke wakes up, groaning slowly under the weight of the things that Lexa has no doubt have been haunting her dreams, she jerks a little, obviously surprised to find herself in Lexa's bed, even alone. Lexa's mind turns away from that last thought, and she straightens as Clarke looks up at her. She gestures to the groud next to the bedroll, and the blonde looks back down at the bowl of dried meat and fruit lying just within arm's reach.

"You should eat," Lexa says simply, and Clarke does: no hesitation, no fear of being drugged or poisoned or indebted or appearing weak. Lexa's not nearly naive enough to think it's because they're past that point; more likely it's just that Clarke doesn't even care anymore.

"We can spare supplies," Lexa says, and Clarke pauses her breakfast to look back up mistrustfully. "To get you wherever you're going."

Clarke frowns, looks at the bowl, and puts down the piece of jerky she's been stripping with her teeth. "I don't know where I'm going," she says. "I just couldn't stay there anymore."

Lexa shakes her head. "It amazes me that your people have survived so long when they somehow expect their leaders not to have to make hard decisions."

Clarke scowls into the bowl. She seems to have lost her appetite. "It's a little more complicated than that."

Lexa shakes her head gently. "No. It's a lot more complicated than that. They're the ones who want it to be simple."

Clarke lets out a sigh. "I just wanted to protect them," she mutters. Her eyes shoot up when Lexa pushes off from the table and kneels down in front of her, their faces so close together and their eyes locked.

"You did. Do you hear me, Clarke? You did."

"I wish I could be like you," Clarke says, breaking the eye contact like she didn't even hear her. "Push out all those emotions and just do the job. Nothing else but them, no matter the cost."

Lexa frowns. Her eyes cut away just as Clarke's cut back. "We're at war. You probably came here to slit my throat while I slept. You're not one of us, and I betrayed you, and any smart leader would have had you executed the moment she saw your face." Lexa looks back up at that face, that beautiful, weary, broken face, and winces. "Maybe I'm not as good at pushing things out as you think."

Clarke blinks. Her lips part. Slowly, so slowly Lexa might not have noticed if every fiber of her body weren't so aware of the girl, Clarke's mouth tips toward hers. They're so agonizingly close to touching when Lexa's hand claps down on Clarke's wrist and the momentum stops.

"No." Lexa pulls back as Clarke blinks again. She feels like her face is on fire. She can't remember the last time she felt like that. "You're not...not now."

Clarke blushes and folds in on herself as Lexa scurries back to the safety of the map table like a coward. Eventually, those icy eyes look up at her again. "You think we're at war?"

Lexa's brows furrow. "You don't?"

Clarke's eyes find a spot behind her in a silent concession of the point. "I...I don't know anymore." She shakes her head. "We're all just so tired."

Lexa nods silently. They sit in that silence until Clarke picks the bowl up again. This time she offers it to Lexa, who hesitates a moment before leaning down to take a handful of dried berries. She's chewing when the tent flap opens and Indra strides inside. She's surprised no one's entered before now, given that she's never been particularly touchy about the privacy of her quarters, but they probably thought that...

Well, she doesn't want to know what they thought.

"We're ready to begin striking the tents, Heda," Indra says. Her eyes flick to Clarke, just for a moment, but Clarke's still looking at the ground. Lexa nods.

"I'll be out shortly."

Indra nods back, and gives Clarke another look before stepping back out of the tent. Lexa turns back to find Clarke guardedly looking up at her.

"We're heading back to Polis. The land around the Mountain can stay with the Sky People for now."

Clarke doesn't respond, except to push herself to her feet. She takes a few steps toward Lexa, only close enough to hand off the bowl. "I'll get out of your hair."

She makes a wide circle around the table, but not so wide that Lexa can't catch her wrist, just like she did last night. "Wait."

Clarke turns to look at her, and she swallows. Before she can stop herself, she says "You could come with us."

Clarke looks at her like she's crazy, because she probably is. "Why? As a bargaining chip in case my people decide to retaliate? As a trophy of your amazing victory?"

"If you want." Lexa purses her lips. "Or...you could just come with us."

Clarke frowns. "You said it yourself: I'm not one of you."

"Aren't you?"

Clarke's mouth twitches. Her eyes are on Lexa's again, studying her. "What do you want from me?"

"I want..." Lexa answers, then trails off because she doesn't actually know. She doesn't want her to leave again. She stupidly, insensibly wants Clarke to forgive her, to be able to turn back time to the way things were just before the battle for the Mountain, but there's no way she's going to say that. Those clear, sharp, heartbreakingly lucid blue eyes are still staring into her as she swallows every answer save one. "I want us to do more than survive."

Clarke blinks. Lexa's hand falls away, as do her eyes. She knows she's said too much, and she needs to look anywhere but at the other girl. That means she feels more than sees as Clarke steps in front of her.

"I'm not going to Polis with you," she says. Lexa nods, still without looking at her. "I just...don't have any reason not to keep going the same direction you're going."

Lexa's eyes flit up, but Clarke's already to the tent flap. As the once and future heda of the Sky People steps outside into the morning sun, Lexa lets out a breath. They're not traveling together. But they're traveling in the same direction.

Maybe, she thinks, that's enough.


End file.
